“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”

In what ways did my participation in these Games benefit my genealogy research?

To begin with, this was a lot of fun and a great way to inject something new into a long, hot Texas summer. In the past, my research has tended to slack off dramatically in the summertime, as it’s just too hot to do anything! Summer is simply my least favorite time of the year, and that attitude affects just about everything I do. But for the past 17 days (and then some!), I have stayed focused on genealogy.

I have also developed some new habits that hopefully will continue, mainly organizing and backing up my data.

A Flickr Pro account has been available to me at no charge through my AT&T Yahoo DSL service, and I didn’t even realize it until the Games began. (Hint: If you have AT&T Yahoo DSL in your area, you might wanna check it out. I signed up online and pay only $10/mo for DSL!) Now Flickr is a major part of my database and provides a safe, off-site location for my valuable data!

Picasa has also become a valuable tool to edit, describe and tag my images.

Procrastination aside, I finally made it to an office supply store for archival-quality storage medium and watertight containers and have begun to use them.

My organization system, both virtual and real-time, didn’t need to be changed (although I did dress it up a bit :) ), but it is always good to examine alternatives.

In general, the Games has caused my to re-think my entire approach to family history research.

When I first began the hunt, I grabbed every name that I found online and tossed it into my database. But later on, I realized that I have to do it correctly, which means D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N! If a name doesn’t have real sources (census, BMD, cemetery, etc), that name generally won’t be found in my database.

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One thought on ““How I spent my summer vacation””

Thanks for this synopsis – your post represents what I hope each participant took away from the GB Games. It really wasn’t important which medal level you reached but that you understood the importance of the tasks, how they fit into the events and how the events really help set some “best practices” for what we as family historians and genealogists do.